Jean Rife, horn, natural horn, yoga
Jean Rife is a horn soloist and chamber musician who has performed with groups in Germany, South America, Canada, and numerous cities in the United States. She served as principal natural hornist with Boston Baroque for over 25 years. Her solo recording on Titanic Records gained her world-wide attention and led to invitations to perform at both international and regional horn workshops. She has also recorded for the BBC in London, WGBH, Radio Suisse Romande, Smithsonian Records, and with the Leonhardt Consort on Teldec.
As a modern horn player, Jean Rife is known as one of Boston's champions of new music. She has commissioned works featuring horn by Yehudi Wyner and Luna Pearl Woolf, and is in the process of commissioning horn quartets by John Harbison, Peter Child, and Brian Robison. She has premiered works by several Boston area composers, including Martin Pearlman and Tim Melbinger, and continues to avidly seek opportunities to play new music.
Early in her career she played principal horn in the Rhode Island Philharmonic and free-lanced throughout New England. After the birth of her daughter in 1987, she changed her focus to teaching and limited her performances to chamber and solo works. Ms. Rife has given masterclasses at the University of Michigan, Indiana University, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Prague Conservatory, University of Wisconsin, University of Northern Iowa, and Southern Methodist University. In the summers she teaches lessons and classes at her home and is on the faculty of The Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East.
Jean Rife became a strong proponent of incorporating yoga with music practice after discovering the benefits in her own playing. "I started yoga in 1992 to improve my horn performance. At the time, I was working towards a master's degree at Harvard, and with all the intellectual work, the horn became increasingly difficult to play. It was clear to me that I needed to make myself more at home in my body again, and I chose yoga as a way to do this.”
"There were noticeable benefits after the first class, such as more ease in my breathing and playing, a renewed sense of fun, increased mental clarity, and a significant reduction in stress. Subsequent classes served to reinforce these benefits and to integrate the new mind-body ease into my daily life without conscious effort…As a result of the dramatic benefits observed, this mind-and-body approach to teaching and performing has become a hallmark of my classes for the past decade."
B.M., Oberlin; M.A., Harvard University. First prize, Heldenleben International Horn Competition. Solo recitals in U.S., Europe, Asia. Guest artist at four International Horn Society Workshops. Recordings: Bridge, Telarc, Telefunken, Titanic, Harmonia Mundi, B.B.C., Radio Suisse Romande. Past Principal Horn, Boston Baroque, Rhode Island Philharmonic. Faculty: Longy School of Music, New England Conservatory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Website: www.jeanrife.com
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